The past six months had been hell for Helen. Now sixteen, just, she had only been clubbing with her girlfriends the week before. Now here she was in a secure room, being watched in an adolescent mental health unit.

Her dad had just visited, but she had asked him to leave when becoming too hysterical to hold a conversation. She wasn’t afraid, wasn’t in danger by the people she was now controlled and monitored by, but refused to admit to herself that someone else could tell her things about her own mind that she couldn’t understand or work out for herself.

It had started as long ago as she could remember; Seven years old and a very happy, popular child. Her eyes as deep blue as her fathers and long dark hair just like her mother.

She remembered with flashbacks how the nanny that looked after her and her brother threw her across the room with frustration. Her head flinched as she remembered hitting the floor. She never shared this with anyone as when she attempted to try, she saw no way that the six foot woman who was in charge of her childcare could not somehow manipulate her accusations to her favour.

In giving up on trust, she started counting anything and everything. Daring herself to steal and swear when no one could hear, it was a way of keeping some form of control, some sort of secret between her and her own mind. However, now it was her own mind that had turned against her and trust was necessary in her recovery.

The weight loss didn’t happen until a year ago. Having learnt to control the counting and routines, she went to secondary school again, a very popular and happy teenager.

“Be careful how high you climb, as the fall is a lot further and faster at the top.”
The words of her head of year, Mr Monty now rung in her ears making sense for the first time.

The past four years had been a walk in the park. Girls nights out, no serious exams yet, testing everything that life threw her way, like any other hedonistic teen.

She had managed to put behind her that fateful night when, at eleven years old, her cousin had managed to get his way with her in bed. She vowed to herself then that sex would never be on the agenda before marriage, and men would never be allowed to take advantage again.

Having stayed true to this, just before her sixteenth birthday, the testing time would come again. Most of her friends had long since lost their virginity having hung round with the older lads in town for a while.

Not Helen though, “if I sleep with you, you will soon forget about me and lose all your respect. We would not be having this conversation if I had have slept with you.” That is what she said to the lad she had been seeing ever since the topic cropped up.